The Energy Information Administration petroleum report showed a rise in US petroleum stock and a drop in oil prices during last week. The report also analyzes the expected growth in oil demand in 2011 despite the economic uncertainty and slow recovery of leading OECD countries. In 2011 the EIA projects a growth in average daily oil consumption of 1.7 million bbl/d compared with 2010’s average. China accounts for 0.7 million bbl/d of this growth. Despite the economic slowdown in China’s growth, the rise in oil consumption is still expected because of the structure of the electricity market in China; the market heavily relies on coal and also hydroelectricity; as coal prices rise and price of electricity is regulated to remain low, the rise in demand for electricity is likely to cause brownouts and blackouts, resulting in increase of private diesel based generators; the recent drought in China will also cause a drop in usage of hydroelectricity. These factors are to be considered when analyzing the growth in crude oil this upcoming summer.
Here is a weekly review of the U.S. oil and petroleum market including crude oil price and petroleum stocks for the week ending June 17th:
Petroleum Stocks
U.S. Petroleum and oil stocks bounced back from their fall a couple of weeks ago and rose during last week by 3.084 million barrels, or by 0.17%. For the week ending on June 17th crude oil stocks reached 1,791 million barrels.
U.S. Ending Stocks of crude oil fell by 1.711 million barrels to 1,090 million barrels; U.S. Ending Stocks of Total Gasoline declined by 0.22% compared with last week’s stocks and reached 214.6 million barrels.
The chart below presents the petroleum and oil stocks levels compared to the WTI crude oil prices during 2011.
The chart shows the downward trend of WTI spot oil price and the upward trend of petroleum and oil stocks in recent weeks. The linear correlation of these two data series (their weekly percent changes) is -0.20.
Petroleum production and imports (for the week of June 17th)
The four week average US production (million of barrels a day) for the week of June 17th reached 5.634, which is 0.3% above previous week’s, and is 3.5% above the average production at the same time last year;
Crude oil imports declined (4 week average) by 0.2% compared with the week of 10/6/2011, and were 7.5% below the same time last year.
The crude oil refinery inputs (4 week average) reached 15.028 (million b/d), an increase of 0.7% compared with the previous week of 10/6/2011, but were still 0.8% below the same time last year.
Below is a detailed recap of the information listed above (for the week of June 17th):
Crude oil price, Gasoline and Diesel prices for the week ending on June 17th
The average U.S. gasoline retail price decreased for the sixth straight week, last week by six cents per gallon compared with the previous week’s average; it reached $3.65 /g, which is $0.91 /g higher than the same period in 2010.
The national average Diesel prices declined by less than a penny compared with the previous week; it remained at $3.95/g. which is $0.99/g higher than last year’s average price at same time.
A detailed analysis on crude oil price for the week of June 17 is herein.
Propane
Propane stocks keep on rising; last week, the stocks inclined by 1,766 thousand barrels – a 4.95% increase – reaching 37.465 million barrels.
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Previous posts on this subject:
- U.S. oil stocks declined by 0.6 million barrels – June 16
- U.S. oil stocks inclined by 1.4 million barrels – June 9
- U.S. oil stocks inclined last week by 7.2 million barrels – June 3